Command & Conquer 3 heading to Xbox 360s
- April 13, 2007 12:50 PM PST
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EA continues its quest to bring realtime strategy games to home consoles, and it's hedging its bets with Command & Conquer 3 for the Xbox 360.
By Eugene Huang
Note: screenshots are from the PC version
It's "two-way street" day here at GamePro. Shortly after our recent report stating that former Xbox 360 exclusive title Lost Planet would be heading to PCs, GamePro has now received word that Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars will be moving from PCs to the Xbox 360.
Electronic Arts has confirmed that the latest addition to the C&C RTS series, a longtime fixture on PCs, will soon be ported over to the Xbox 360 as early as May. Furthermore, the publisher is also working on getting a demo for the game out the door and into the Xbox Live Marketplace sometime "in the coming weeks".
Lately, EA seems to be on a mission to prove to the world that the RTS genre can be successfully ported over to home consoles, and last year's Xbox 360 release of The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II was a good indication of their success. The developers for C&C 3 will attempt to build on that success by improving how the game's controls respond to the Xbox 360 controller.
According to a hands-on impressions report from GameSpot, EA's Los Angeles studios have taken much of the feedback from Battle for Middle-earth II into account, and have been specifically improving grouping options, as well as making access to the game's functions more efficient.
But in addition to the control tweaks, the Xbox 360 version will also feature four exclusive multiplayer modes, which are listed as siege, capture the flag, capture and hold, and king of the hill. Capture the flag and king of the hill are what you would expect out of multiplayer modes, and capture and hold is simply a team version of king of the hill with multiple points of contention. But, the most unique mode out of all of them has to be siege, which starts you off with a 5-minute window in which your base is surrounded by an impenetrable energy wall. During that time, you need to build up your offenses and defenses as quickly as possible, but once those five minutes are up, anything goes.
EALA has also touted the game's support of the Xbox Live Vision camera, which allows you to see the faces of your opponents while you play. This Xbox 360 exclusive feature also takes pictures of players at the end of the match, allowing winners to taunt their opponents in whichever way they see fit.
Despite a few "rough spots", GameSpot claims that the game so far looks fairly impressive. In addition, the site was surprised that there were no instances of framerate slowdown during four-player matches, despite the game's early stage of development. Look for the title, as well as GamePro's reaction to the game, when it comes out next month.
